fashion-bred damsel, with folly a-flutter,
Until you have learned how to manage a broom,
If never you know how to tidy a room,
Manipulate bread or decide about butter,
The duties of matron how dare you assume,
Or ever be bride to a sensible groom?

I covet no part with that army of shirkers
All down at the heels in their slipper-y tread,
Who hunt for the rolling-pin under the bed,
Who look with disdain on intelligent workers
And take to the club or the circus instead
Of mending a stocking or laying the spread.

Oh, I dream of a system of perfect housekeeping,
Where mistress and helper together compete
In excellent management, quiet and neat;
And though in the bosom of earth I am sleeping,
Shall somebody live to whom life will be sweet
And home an ideal, idyllic retreat.

Going to Tobog.

Into my disappointment-cup
The snowflakes fell and blocked the road,
And so I thought I'd finish up
The latest style of Christmas ode;
When she, the charming little lass
With eyes as bright as isinglass,
Before a line my pen had wrought
In strange attire came bounding in,
As if she had with Bruno fought,
And robbed him of his shaggy skin.

She came to me robed _cap-a-pie_
In her bewitching "blanket-suit,"
In moccasin and toggery,
All ready for "that icy chute,"
And asked me if I thought she'd do;
I shake with love of mischief true:
"For what?--a polar bear?--why, yes!"
"No, no!" she said, with half a pout.
"Why, one would think so, by your dress--
Say, does your mother know you're out?"

"No, I'm not out," she said, and sighed;
"Because the storm so wildly raged--
But for the first delightful ride
For half a year I've been engaged."
"Engaged to what?--an Esquimau?
To ride a glacier, or a floe?"
"Why, don't you know"--her color glowed,
In expectation all agog--
"The reason why I'm glad it snowed?
Because--I'm going to tobog."

"Passer Le Temps."

So _that's_ the way you pass your time!
Indeed your charming, frank confession
Betrays no sort of heinous crime,
But marks a wonderful digression
From puritanic views, less bold,
That we were early taught to hold.

"_Passer le temps_," of course, implies
A little cycle of fli